I'm Andy Warren, currently a SQL Server trainer with End to End Training. Over the past few years I've been a developer, DBA, and IT Director. I was one of the original founders of SQLServerCentral.com and helped grow that community from zero to about 300k members before deciding to move on to other ventures.

Archives: October 2010

I saw this at the college where we held SQLSaturday #49 on the restroom door. I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s not as if the door blasts open with the automatic opener, and how is it different than someone on the inside pushing it open? And wouldn’t… Read more

Earlier this week I posted Bloggers, Quit Worrying About Spam, discussing what I felt was an over-focus on preventing spam in blog comments. I stand by that, but since that post the rate of spam being posted to my blog is up by a factor of 10 or more.… Read more

Imagine you’re talking with a recruiter about a position that seems like a good fit and during that conversation they ask “Do you have other opportunities open?”. What’s the right answer? And what is the underlying intent?

In general I’m in favor of honesty, but I’m also in favor of… Read more

With SQLSaturday #49 we tried something I call micro-sponsors, charging $5 for a blogger to sponsor the event. It’s a way to do brand building and to contribute in a fun way. It’s not a huge amount of money, about $4.50 after the merchant fees, and I think for Orlando… Read more

I don’t comment as often as I should on blog posts. I say should because as a blogger I know that it’s a bit of a treat to have someone post a comment, especially when you don’t know the person, or realize the person was reading what you wrote on… Read more

So far SQLSaturday Tampa will be the first SQLSaturday of 2011, and the first one I’ll be attending in 2011 as well. I’m going to try to attend one event a month, the try portion meaning there is a terrible temptation to do more (as in all of them)… Read more

One more from the ‘new book’ shelf at the library, All Things at Once is an auto biography of Mika Brzezinski, a moderately well known TV news person who is currently the co-anchor of a morning news/political commentary show. The book, in my view at least, isn’t about politics. It’s… Read more

I was just writing a thank you message to our speakers for SQLSaturday #49 and wanted to write down a couple thoughts about that. The SQLSaturday tools remind us to send a thank you note and even suggests text, but whether you modify the boilerplate or write something from scratch,… Read more

I wrote Cheap Fun after buying a really cheap – $1 – wood airplane kit at the store for the kids. Amazing what manufacturers can do with a 9×12 piece of really thin plywood. We added glue, some minor head scratching around assembly, and of course the custom paint job! Read more

Please take a few minutes to review the September 2010 minutes (login required). We just had our October meeting on October 14th, those minutes should be available by the end of next week at the latest.

I know it’s not a thriller, but it’s worth five minutes to understand what… Read more

Over the past few months I’ve been thinking that we don’t do enough to celebrate the people and the effort that goes into a SQLSaturday. From an attendee perspective it doesn’t look very complex (nor should it), but for an organizer it’s a massive amount of work, and it… Read more

We’ve made great progress with SQLSaturday this year; reaching new cities, a successful handoff to PASS, and a lot of enthusiasm going into 2011. So where do we go next? PASS HQ was about to find meeting space for 100 people on Monday, Nov 8th, so that we can sit… Read more

Below is a screen shot of our current speaker/session evaluation form. Simple and to the point, I think it gives the speaker some decent feedback and places a minimal burden on the attendee to fill it out. Here in Orlando we have the speaker collect them and then draw one… Read more

We headed into the SQLSaturday #49 weekend with a $99 seminar on Database Design by Louis Davidson. We ended up with 35 attendees and I think everyone had a nice day. We definitely need tools to manage this, having a separate registration and budget was a distraction at best, and… Read more

First, a reminder that our fourth annual SQLSaturday is this Saturday, October 16, 2010, at Seminole State College in Lake Mary, FL. Weather forecast looks good, we’ll have lunch picnic style again, and you’ll be joining a crowd that should top 250! If you attend please say hello, always nice… Read more

The almost final list just posted by Mike Walsh, 50+ MVP’s will each host a lunch table at the PASS Summit on Tuesday, November 9, 2010. I participated in this last year and had a great time, doing so again this year and my topic this time will be SQL… Read more

Saw this today, a survey posted to the SQL Protocols blog by Principal Group Program Manager Raghu Ram. I took it (wouldn’t recommend it without trying it!) took about 2 minutes, and the most interesting question is at the end, prioritizing work, with options including a focus on TDS compression,… Read more